Itâ€™s National Pollinator Week, and ecosystems â€“ whether agricultural, urban, or natural –depend on pollinators, great and small. Pollinators in the form of bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles provide vital, but often invisible, services from supporting terrestrial wildlife and plant communities to supporting healthy watersheds. USGS and federal partners are studying native bees and their behaviors at selected sites across the country.

Bevy of Bees

Anthophora bomboides

Bees are nearly ubiquitous, occurring on every continent except Antarctica. Wherever there are insect-pollinated flowering plants — forest, farms, cities and wildlands — there are bees. And just because you donâ€™t see plants blooming, does not mean that there are no bees around. There are nearly 20,000 known bee species in the world, and 4,000 of them are native to the United States. From the tiny and solitary Perdita minima, known as the worldâ€™s smallest bee, to the large carpenter bee, to the brilliant blue of the mason bee; native bees come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Â And all these bees have jobs, as pollinators

Providing Ecosystem Services

Native bees pollinate native plants like cherries, blueberries and cranberries, and were here long before European honeybees were brought to the country by settlers. Honeybees, of course, are well known for pollinating almond and lemon trees, okra, papaya and watermelon plants. But native bees are estimated to pollinate 80 percent of flowering plants around the world. And very few of them sting â€“ really!

According to the USDA, bees of all sorts pollinate approximately 75 percent of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, and one out of every four bites of food people take is courtesy of bee pollination. In sum, bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in increased crop value each year.

Bees are vegetarians who descended from wasps about 125 million years ago when the first flowering plants evolved. Some wasps switched from hunting prey to gathering pollen, evolving to become bees. Bees feed on both nectar and pollen â€“ the nectar is for energy, and the pollen provides protein and other nutrients. Most pollen is used by bees as larvae food, but bees also transfer it from plant-to-plant providing the pollination services needed by plants and nature as a whole.

Anthophora occidentalis, male, Badlands National Park, June 2012

Home Sweet Home

Most native bees build nests and provide food for their offspring, but about 20-25 percent have gone the way of the cuckoo birds, laying their eggs in the nests of others. Aside from the â€ścuckooâ€ť bees, all bees build nests, and stock them with pollen and nectar before laying their eggs. Some, like the sweat bee, build nests underground while others choose hollow stems or holes in trees, like the leafcutter bee.

Program scientists have also devised a technique for collecting and processing native bee specimens for the inventory, as well as having developed an easy-to-use permanent monitoring technique that will be deployed nationally in 2014. The program also manages the worldâ€™s largest international listserv of bee monitoring and identification.

USGS and its partners have conducted native bee inventories at more than 100 national parks, wildlife refuges and forests; and nearly 1000 super-high resolution public domain images of bees and wasps are available online. The programâ€™s native bee database of approximately 250,000 collection records of bees and wasps rivals that of the largest museums. Records can be viewed at the Discoverlife and Encyclopedia of Life websites. Even with all that is being learned about native bees, native bee researchers still face challenges.

Colony collapse disorder, the cause of which is unknown, affects only European honeybees and has been recorded across the county. The primary symptom of the disorder is having no or low numbers of adult honeybees present in a hive; no dead honeybees are present, but a queen is. Immature bees will be present and honey will still be in the hive. Fortunately, colony collapse disorder does not affect native bees, though some native bees and other pollinators are also experiencing population declines and range reductions. Native bee species are being affected by at least some of the same factors affecting honeybees such as habitat loss and fragmentation as well as the use of pesticides.

What can you do for native bees?

To increase or improve habitat for native bees, plant a diversity of pollen and nectar sources native to your area that bloom at various times during the year. Native plants and native pollinators have mutually adapted over the millennia. Many native bee species are pollen specialists and need to provide their young with pollen from native plants, so providing native plants will increase the diverse community of native bee species. If possible, avoid use of pesticides and provide a source of pesticide-free water, and mud, which is used as a nesting material by some bee species.Â You can also provide nesting habitat for native bees by rototilling a bare spot in the lawn or garden for soil-nesting bees, leaving standing dead trees, which will provide housing for native bees, or Â building a bee house. For more tips, listen to our podcast, Bees are Not Optional.

Bees Are Not Optional: Podcast that discusses the tremendous importance of native bees and pollinators in general, and how you can lend a hand to these tiny titans.

The Buzz on Pollinators:Â Series of podcasts done with the Interior Department and the Pollinator Partnership:Â The Pollinator Partnership, Pollinators and Climate, Endangered Butterflies and Plants, Busy Bees in the Beltway, Pollinators on Public Lands

Finally, a prime suspect has been identified as a probable cause of the Sea Star Wasting Disease, a mysterious epidemic that has been killing these iconic marine animals in droves along the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Coast since 2013. Read more

Californiaâ€™s sea otter numbers are holding steady against the many forces pushing against their population recovery, according to the latest field survey led by USGS, state, aquarium, and university scientists. Read more

Mid-sized mammals in Everglades National Park are getting a big squeeze from invasive Burmese pythons, according to a USGS co-authored study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

After years of planning, the Department of the Interior has begun removing two dams on the Elwha River in Washington. But how will the removal of these dams impact the riverâ€™s sediments, waters, and fish?

USGS scientists study walruses off the northwestern Alaska coast in August as part of their ongoing study of how the Pacific walrus are responding to reduced sea ice conditions in late summer and fall.

Secretive and rare stream-dwelling amphibians are difficult to find and study. Scientists at the US Geological Survey and University of Idaho have developed a way to detect free-floating DNA from amphibians in fast-moving stream water.

Within the rivers, streams, and lakes of North America live over 200 species of freshwater mussels that share an amazing life history. Join us in Reston, VA to explore the fascinating reproductive biology and ecological role of one of natureâ€™s most sophisticated fishermen.

New USGS research shows that rice could become adapted to climate change and some catastrophic events by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi. The DNA of the rice plant itself is not changed; instead, researchers are re-creating what normally happens in nature.

A new study supports the ecological reliance of red knots on horseshoe crabs. The well-being of red knots, a declining shorebird species, is directly tied to the abundance of nutrient-rich eggs spawned by horseshoe crabs.

New USGS research shows that certain lichens can break down the infectious proteins responsible for chronic wasting disease, a troubling neurological disease fatal to wild deer and elk and spreading throughout the United States and Canada.

For reliable information about amphibians and the environmental factors that are important to their management and conservation, visit the new USGS Amphibian Monitoring and Research Initiative website.

Join us in learning about wildlife conservation research with Dr. Matthew Perry as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Major programs include global climate change studies, Chesapeake Bay studies, and wildlife conservation monitoring.

Ten gangly, adolescent whooping cranes have been released in Louisiana, marking a milestone for the USGS, the State of Louisiana, and the whooping cranes. The USGS has the largest breeding flock in the U.S., at about 60 birds. About half of these USGS-raised birds are returned to the wild each year.